In Hohenshelt v. Superior Court , the California Supreme Court held that California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1281.98—a do-or-die statute requiring employers to pay arbitration fees within 30 days or waive the right to arbitrate altogether—is not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). While it is not the precise outcome employers may have hoped for, many employers are correctly viewing the decision as a win, because in saving the statute from preemption, the Court effectively defanged it to foreclose its harshest consequences.

For years as we have reported time and time again, the California Court of Appeal had interpreted Section 1281.98 as imposing a strict, inflexible rule: Any late payment by an employer, regardless of the reason, resulted in an automatic forf

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